On an unseasonably hot September Sunday afternoon I was relaxing in the garden with my family and my two dogs when the bucolic sounds of Gávea were rent by terrified screams. They went on and on, rising in pitch and volume, as - heart accelerating - I tried to decipher the source: a child? a dog? a cat?

Based on past experiences, I suspected my neighbor. An important singer in Brazil and fairly recent arrival in our neighborhood, he had imported a babalorixá from his native Bahia to render services in this residential Rio de Janeiro enclave.

A babalorixá is a priest of  Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian animistic-fetishist cult originally brought to Brazil by African slaves. I didn't know what this implied until I realized that in the garden next to mine a series of small animals, such as pigs, goats and roosters, were being sacrificed and their blood smeared on the gate to the house.

When not engaged in his religious duties the babalorixá would strut about in the garden dressed only in wide white cotton pants, his naked torso adorned with many chains and amulets. If he happened to see us looking at him he would sneer "Cê tá olhando o que  (Whatya lookin' at)?"

The knowledge that innocent animals were living in cages so close to our house waiting to be sacrificed turned our stomachs. Our two black cats sometimes explore the neighborhood and it struck me that this exotic man might like to add them to his collection of eventual victims. At one point I called to express my concern.

"But, Senhora, it's their religion. We have to respect their religion," said  the personal assistant to the artist.

"I respect any religion," I said, "but I don't understand why they have to kill animals. I find it unsettling and even the Brazilian people in my house shudder when they hear the screams. I want you to know that if anything happens to my cats there is no limit to what I would do!"

Not long after, we saw in the news that the babalorixá  had gone off to Paris. It turned out that he likes to dress well and he was pictured smiling in the paper dressed in Armani.

The back yard was quiet again.

Until this afternoon.

As the screams died down I stood to look down into the neighboring garden, which is at a slightly lower level than mine. A group of well-dressed people surrounded a young man clad in white who was dangling a slack rooster by its feet. Accompanied by my two wildly barking dogs I rushed to the fence separating our properties.

"What's going on here?" I demanded, "what did you just do?"

The yard emptied as if by magic except for a lone black woman. She sat on a stone step with her back to me stirring a crude metal pan over an improvised fire. It appeared to be filled with pale beans in a dark liquid - in all likelihood blood drained from a slit in the slain rooster's neck. No one answered me.

"Look at me! What is your name?" She didn't turn, but kept stirring, snickering at my agitation. Incensed by her insolence and by the absurdity of the whole situation I escalated the confrontation:

 "You miserable people, killing defenseless animals!" 

"You are the miserable one!" she retorted.

The young man reappeared.

"This is Brazil," he said brandishing his right arm in the air for emphasis with the dead rooster still hanging from his left, "go back to where you came from - fora daqui!"

"I have been here for almost thirty years!" I protested in my unmistakable Danish accent.

"And I have been here for thirty-four!" said the woman, "just get out of here!"

Trembling now with indignation and rage I demanded to see the person in charge. No one appeared. Safe in their anonymity, the hidden group of people called out raucously: "Fora daqui!"
 
"Cowards! Assassins!" I yelled back.

The young man made himself scarce and I was left looking at the hunched back of the woman stirring her beans.  The scene in my backyard had uncovered more than the issue of sacrificing animals. The ready  xenophobia of the celebrants had obviously struck a sensitive cord.  But my agitation had run its course and wishing now to stir things up on their side I addressed her:
 
"Don't you think it's strange that the people you work for are afraid to be seen and to talk to me? They leave you all alone out here. It is discrimination, don't you agree?"

She silently stirred her pot of beans and did not reply nor turn around.

In the days that followed I pondered the root of my agitation. I am sure that most Brazilians would agree with me that killing defenseless animals in such a cruel fashion is wrong. The very fact that the celebrants in the garden hid when I confronted them would support this.

What stuck in my mind, however, was their assertion of themselves as Brazilians, and their questioning my right as a foreigner to have a contrary opinion - or even a right to be here.

On the other hand, I considered, as a foreigner, I could empathize with the slain chicken and with the lone black woman and use my different cultural background to point out the absurdity of the scene in my backyard.

After speaking again with the personal assistant to the famous artist I was assured that the matter would be looked into. For the moment there were no more screams from the neighbor's garden, and I concluded it must be up to me to decide where I belong.

Siri Chateaubriand left Denmark in her early twenties to live for extended periods in England, Ireland and the U.S. When she met her Brazilian husband at Cornell University they moved back together to Rio de Janeiro. They have lived in the same house for close to 26 years. You can reach her at siric@centroin.com.br.

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